5 Google Analytics Tips for eCommerce Websites

Traditional shopping is a passing fad and now shopping from food to clothes is mostly done via internet. However, there is no dearth of online shopping portals that are vying for customers’ attention across the globe. So, how do they manage to stay ahead in the race?

Well, the answer lies in a four letter word – DATA. Those, who are analyzing data 24×7 to understand who their average customer is and are making suitable changes, are beating the competition. And one of the most effective tools available for data analysis is Google Analytics (GA), which can help any eCommerce player to actually see if their online marketing strategies are working and optimizing sales.

E-commerce players keep experimenting. Some click, some fail. But to get a better understanding of why a certain campaign did or didn’t work, use GA campaign tracking. It gives you the data behind the strategy for you to see where you won/lost. All you need is to create a special URL for the campaign and see its statistics and assess the ROI after the campaign is over. You also need to take out referral spam aka ghost traffic or spam crawlers to get clean data, which will tell you if a campaign is truly working or not. The Site Search feature reveals what your users search for on your site. You can capitalize on the search terms to optimize the page where the keyword is primarily targeted.

Tracking Bounce Rate

While, a bounce rate of less than 40% is considered okay, anything more is bad for business. Faulty website design or pages taking several seconds to load can put off the visitor. Sometimes, when the content is irrelevant, it makes the potential customer leave the site immediately. With GA, you can take corrective measures as it helps in detecting weak spots and getting your conversion funnel streamlined.

Know your customer

This is possibly the most important use of GA. It helps you discover who your customers are – age, gender, region wise. You can plan your campaigns better knowing who is most likely to buy from you and their purchasing habits like the size and frequency of their purchase. You can also get to know which digital platform – desktop or mobile – are they using and optimize that platform. The purpose of acquisition reports and conversion rates, assist you in eliminating factors that hamper the webpage traffic and investing more in channels that bring you more buyers.

Using annotations

Once you have identified the customers, now use Annotations in GA to understand sales report. It tells you the top performing products in your store. It not only tracks fall and rise in sales but also suggest factors that might have led to it. For example, it will show if your sales increased because of the free coupons you were offering during the long weekend. You can also use GA to compare to see how you are faring against the competition.

Customizing reports

If you want specific set of data to understand the dynamics, GA offers that too. You can create your own custom report to retrieve the required information by simply clicking on the ‘customize’ feature and choose options you want. GA with all its infographs helps you prepare comprehensible reports for board meetings with partners and investors. And in case you have lost track of several reports you have prepared, you can always use the option “Find Reports & More” and browse through the existing documents quickly.

Conclusion

It’s imperative for E-commerce players to use digital tools for identifying who, among the huge global audiences, can be their customer. And since, not everyone has the budget like Amazon or Walmart to set up a whole team to do that, they can bank on Google Analytics. Though to understand a few detailed processes, you might take the help of a web developer, GA largely presents statistics that are easy to evaluate and if acted upon intelligently, it can help boost your eCommerce website.